Founder

Markus Miessen

Director

(*1978, Bonn, Germany) is an architect, consultant, educator, and writer. In 2002, he set up Studio Miessen, a collaborative agency for spatial practice and cultural inquiry, and in 2007, he co-founded the London- and Berlin-based architectural practice nOffice. In various collaborations, Miessen has published: The Nightmare of Participation – Crossbench Praxis as a Mode of Criticality (Sternberg Press, 2010/ Merve Verlag, 2010/ Archive Books, 2010), Institution Building: Artists, Curators, Architects in the Struggle for Institutional Space (Sternberg Press, 2009), When Economies Become Form (Berlage Institute, 2009), East Coast Europe (Sternberg Press, 2008), The Violence of Participation (Sternberg Press, 2007), With/Without: Spatial Products, Practices, and Politics in the Middle East (Bidoun, 2007), Did Someone Say Participate? An Atlas of Spatial Practice (MIT Press, 2006/ Revolver, 2006), and Spaces of Uncertainty (Müller+Busmann, 2002). In 2008, The Independent listed Did Someone Say Participate? as one of the ten best architecture books of all time. Miessen frequently contributes to international magazines and journals, such as Artforum, Log, 032c, Bidoun, Volume, and Kaleidoscope. His work has been published and exhibited widely, including at the Lyon, Venice, Performa (NY), Manifesta (Murcia), and Shenzhen Biennials. He has taught and lectured at the Architectural Association, London (2004–08), the Berlage Institute, Rotterdam (2009–10), Columbia University, and MIT. He has consulted the Slovenian Government during Slovenia’s presidency of the EU council, the European Kunsthalle, the Serpentine Gallery, the Dutch organization SKOR, and the Swiss think tank W.I.R.E. In 2008, he founded the Winter School Middle East (Dubai, Kuwait, Iran). Miessen works as a Harvard Fellow on a research project in Kuwait, is a professor for architecture and curatorial practice at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (Karlsruhe), a Ph.D. candidate at the Centre for Research Architecture (Goldsmiths, London), an editor of Archive Journal (Berlin/Turin), and recently has been elected a member of the European Cultural Parliament.

www.studiomiessen.com | www.nOffice.eu

Zahra Ali Baba

Co-Director

(*1983, Kuwait) is an architect and researcher, who studied architecture at Kuwait University, where she received her BArch in 2008 and later graduated with a thesis on “Veils: Mapping Ground Tendency”. Zahra is working on various restoration, archaeology and renovation projects such as Diwan and Qasr Khaz’al, both located in Kuwait City. With an interest in film, linguistics, fabrics and thought-images as mediums of research, Zahra’s recent projects include: “Dialectic Durations”, a collaborative research and film series, which explores the daily life of places and habits; “Implicit”, a series of moving image observations and visual routines concerning the process of reproducing Qasr Khaz’al; and “Values of worldliness or vectors of pure escape?”, investigating the city as a territory of layered sensibility. Most recently, Zahra is working on a thesis: “The Natural History of Prayers”.